Anecdote Corner

[Purple]

Night shifts are well boring and you lot need to up your game regarding keeping me amused!

This weeks shit question -

Can anyone recall their favourite or interesting wargames?
I require a beautifully written narrative like a Chandler book but bursting with nostalgic whimsy.

Cress Points are available.

[Slugbalancer]

Can I include board wargames?

[grizzlymc]

My favourite wargame was held 45 years ago at our wargames club meeting.

On the ground floor was a game with a reinforced 1970s brigade each side, 50 elements. Three players played a WWIII wargame with NO table talk.

On turn 1, they played a turn. Then they had 60 seconds to report to their superiors.
table talk was forbidden.

I and Ross, read the messages redacting anything which the writer couldn't see, then we redacted bits that got a 1 on a 1-6 die. They were carried upstairs to where 6 people sat at two tables. Each person at the table commanded the person below, but they just had a hand drawn map of the table and the messages. The messages were handed out and the leaders given 60 seconds to write their comms to the field units and /or the Cin C.

The C in C's messages were taken to them and they had 60 seconds to respond, they could also allocate their artillery and air assets to the field commanders.
Then we went downstairs, by which time turn 2 had been played. Messages were handed out and the players had 60 seconds to write their messages.

The maps weren't very well drawn.

The game was fantastic! Support arrived too late, gaps opened up between commands, it was fog of war embodied.

All the players refused to do it again because they had no control over their forces.

[Wg Cdr Luddite]

A small campaign I ran some years ago set in 1934 where a fictional South American nation invades a British Island in the Atlantic. I still have the newspaper clippings somewhere. Don't think I could motivate myself to put that much effort into a game anymore.

[grizzlymc]

In 1934, that would have been a bloodbath.

[Subedai]

There is one particular game I remember and that was Assyrians against Ancient British using WRG 3rd Edition -aging myself here. The Brits, being mostly LMI, could gallop over hills like racehorses whereas the majority of his chaps were MI or HI. So, thinks I, I'll put a line of hills just over the halfway line so that my chaps can barrel over the tops and down the other side with no movement penalty and have a downhill charging bonus when it all kicked off. On the far right were my chariots, some LC and a few LI.

With the chariots, LC and LI echeloned back on my right flank, the five or six warbands were off, over the hills towards the patiently waiting Assyrians. Then my chaps had to make a morale roll in order to charge. The right hand warband failed miserably and decided to go home, the next now had a routing unit on it's immediate flank so that took off as well. This rather awkward situation continued down the line until all my LMI were over the hills and far away, leaving only a bemused group of chariots, LC and LI to hold the ground.

As games go, it must have been the quickest on record, lasting no longer than twenty minutes!

How we chuckled!

[Zenbadger]

My Venture Scout Leader was a possibly insane Australian Vietnam veteran and he used to take us on "extended patrols" in the Peak District or Sherwood Forest. One one particular patrol he promised something special for the last day and as we had already covered about 70 miles in three days we were happy to spend a day static. In the morning we whittled and carved little wooden scouts and used a heated screwdriver to mark them out in our uniform (striped neckerchief) and that of the 10th (halved neckerchief), about fifty of each. That afternoon we played a giant outdoor wargame using simple D6 based rules, squirting burning Coleman Fuel to represent napalm and digging craters with a trowel to show the aftermath of an air strike. Each casualty was snapped in half and consigned to the fire because "real soldiers don't go back in the toybox". Every so often he would throw an axe at a group of wooden scouts and shout "obvious route - BOOBY TRAPS!!!". We had enormous fun and it became an annual event, there was even a case back at HQ where the surviving woodies spent their post-combat days, the more woodies to your name, the greater your standing in the unit.

[FreddBloggs]

Not a wargame as such, more a tewt. My local history society had a serious downer on the Battle of the Somme, and were unwilling to listen to why it happened, just denigrated the how.

So at a meeting, I put up a map of the front lines in March 1916, and handed them briefings and roles at random to come up with the British plan for 1916.

They went away, planned, planned, planned, asked questions asked more questions, then I move3d the date up to End May 1916, told them the French could only commit to part of the attack due to Verdun,...

At the end of the evening they then got to present the attack plan, I then showed them the real attack plan, which was remarkably similar to theirs. One accused me of fixing it, 2 more were unhappy they had not done better and the other 5 or 6 took a greater interest in the whys and hows, and were less quick to just blame Chateau Generals etc..

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

My Venture Scout Leader was a possibly insane Australian Vietnam veteran....

One of those occasions where I suspect "possibly" might be redundant. Even insulting.

[Buff Orpington]

Most Venture Scout leaders are borderline insane.